


Learning The Hard Way

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Gabriel (Supernatural), But This Still Ain’t Right, Castiel Knows How Flocks Work, Cruel Gabriel, Flock, Gabriel Punishes Cas, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Multi, Not a Happy Story, Polygamy, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Spanking, abusive gabriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 21:29:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18668734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: New flock. New rules.Gabriel is on a learning curve just like the rest of them, but unless he can get them to toe the line and stop risking their lives, it’ll be the shortest existing flock arrangement in history.And by them, he means Dean.But he knows one surefire way of getting Dean’s attention.





	Learning The Hard Way

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I think Gabriel’s ‘best intentions’ here don’t cut it. I think he’s abusive and cruel and being scared of losing his flock and trying to adapt ‘the rules’ because this is a non traditional set up doesn’t make what he did ok. 
> 
> *unhappy wee writer*

Dean doesn’t say much on the ride home. He keeps looking in the rear view mirror, to where Cas’s truck is following a safe distance behind them.

He can just make out the two angels in the front seat, and Gabriel’s driving, which tells him how bad he’s fucked up since Gabriel _never_ drives.

Fact, Dean’s sure if Gabriel thought he could find a way to make it happen, Gabriel would have put all of them in one vehicle or the other, and herded them home like that.

But he knows Dean wouldn’t leave the Impala, and by the same standard it would be unfair to ask Cas to abandon his truck, even short term.

He’s pretty sure all the archangel’s thinking right now is that his family was in danger today and, while Dean would (and will) argue that it’s part of the job, he knows the argument Gabriel’s going to come back with.

That it wasn’t necessary, and although he’s going to fight his corner, he has a pretty sound idea of how things are going to end up.

++

When they get back, Gabriel puts the bunker on lock down. Sam and Dean go shower, and the angels go angel-meld or whatever they do when they’re away from the human members of the flock, and then Dean smells something spicy and delicious wafting through the halls so he knows Cas broke away long enough to cook.

Dinner’s a tense, silent affair. Cas eats enough for politeness, but Gabriel just watches them all, Dean especially, with a stony look on his face.

When the meal’s over, and the brothers start gathering up the dishes (house rules, he who cooks doesn’t have to do the washing up), Gabriel stands.

“Just let them to soak,” he says. “Then come right back here.”

Dean winces at the tone, and does a poor job of hiding it. Gabriel’s tongue’s sharp, his humour biting, and it’s usually either or both that he uses scathingly in any argument.

But when he’s driven to actually lose his temper…. Dean can hear he’s on the cusp of it, because of him, and he hates that.

When they started this arrangement, he won’t lie…. He was pretty sure it would end badly, but he figured as long as he, Sam and Cas were still a family unit at the end of it, they’d cope.

But Gabriel had found a way to bind them together, as an actual flock, and before Dean knew it he’d come to love it and the way their lives changed.

It wasn’t in any big dramatic sense. It was mostly little things, like surprise hugs, and sleepy kisses, and the odd back rub during movie marathons.

And, of course, them sharing a nest, which was really more of a pillow fort, but even Cas was letting Gabriel have that one.

While letting somebody else have charge of them rankled initially, Dean soon found he was grateful to yield once he realised Gabriel wasn’t going to steer them off a cliff or anything.

But the downside was when one of them screwed up, Gabriel took it personally.

Because their safety and wellbeing was on him, because that was how flocks worked.

Dean got it, because it was how their family pre Gabriel had worked as well, just with it all coming to rest on him.

It didn’t mean he was happy about what was going to happen next.

++

“I get it,” Dean says, when they’re all sitting around the table, and Gabriel’s silence makes it clear he’s waiting on an explanation. “I know you think I should have waited.”

“You _should_ have,” Gabriel says. “We were one floor away, Dean. But, hey, I’m Dean Winchester, the world is my monster killing catwalk, demons smoulder into ashes before the force of my blue steel.”

“Yeah, fine,” Dean snaps. “I’m a total newbie at the whole ganking things with no pulse, except oh wait, I’m _not_. You don’t think you’re being a little over dramatic?”

Even as he says it, Dean can feel the tingle of pissed off Grace emanating from the archangel. Sam looks like he’s trying to find a way to turn back the stretch he’d taken between one year and the next so he can sink deeper into the chair. Even Cas looks more than a little concerned.

“And there is it,” Gabriel says. “When it’s Cas, or Sam, you’re right there, cussing them out because they’re your responsibility and they don’t get to put themselves in harm’s way.

“But when it’s you, that’s different. Except that’s just how it used to be, Dean. It’s not how it is, now. None of you get to be stupid with your lives.”

Dean forces himself to meet Gabriel’s eyes, because not doing so is just an admission.

“Which is why you’re going to learn your lesson the hard way. Cas, dungeon, now.”

“Wait, what?” Dean’s coming around the table, getting in front of Gabriel even before the two angels can stand up. “No fucking way.”

“Dean,” Cas protests.

“No,” Dean says. “You wanna punish somebody, fine, I admit it. I went ahead because I was worried the rest of you would get hurt, and I get we’re a unit now, a...a flock, and we do this shit together, but I fucked up, not Cas!”

Gabriel nods. “And you’d let me Fifty Shades your ass and still think you were right. But when somebody else is taking your punishment, Dean, then you won’t be so fucking sure.”

Dean looks past Gabriel to where Cas stands just behind him. He doesn’t look happy, but there’s a disquieting acceptance about him which makes Dean feel like Cas is silently agreeing with his big brother.

“Cas,” he pleads, but Gabriel goes around him, and Cas follows, and that’s the last Dean sees of him for the next while.

++

It’s not how it’s done upstairs (not that Gabriel’s complaining because hello, can anybody say _shit-fest_ but a human-angel flock’s a little unorthodox.

And it meant breaking tradition more than a little, but that’s kind of his shtick so…

Even though they spend most of their time together as a flock, they each have their own separate rooms for when they just need some time away from the others.

Gabriel’s in his own room now, reaching out from there with his Grace to soothe his little brother as best he can.

He hates what he had to do there. Hates that Cas understood, and tried to stay extra silent so Gabriel wouldn’t know he was hurt and upset.

Hates that Cas is down in the dungeon, locked in and alone, so that Dean will learn his lesson.

Sometimes he isn’t sure there’s a future in this for any of them.

He knows the knock at the door, even without taking a sneaky angel-peek.

“Come in, Sam.”

Sam opens the door, and sighs when he sees the no doubt pitiful fucking scene in front of him.

“Gabe. Look, Dean’s learned his lesson. Why don’t you let Cas out, let Dean take care of him, and-“

“Has he?” Gabriel sits up, away from the headboard. “You really think if we replayed this whole thing tomorrow, he’d get his head out of his ass?”

He isn’t ready for that to set Sam off, though he probably should have been.

Suddenly there’s six foot five of really pissed off moose staring down at him, and Gabriel’s not surprised there are fucking behemoths out there that have nightmares of Sam Winchester.

“Maybe you’re the one who needs to get his head out of his ass! What kind of fucked up way is this to handle anything?”

“This is how flocks work!”

“Really? Upstairs? Well, we’re not upstairs, Gabriel, and you’re the first one to admit we’re not a heavenly flock! C’mon, Gabriel, each of us has made a career out of breaking every damn rule there is. And you’re surprised we’re not stopping? You’re surprised at Dean putting everybody first?

“He’s downstairs, right now, sitting outside the dungeon, trying to make sure Cas is okay. Because you hurt him, Gabriel, and that’s the first time you’ve ever done that.”

Gabriel stiffens. He’s meted out punishments before. It’s not even the first time he’s had to spank one of them, for Dad’s sake.

But he’s not afraid to admit that today…. Today he didn’t hold back, because Dean scared him, scared all of them, and Gabriel knows it can be hard to teach Dean a lesson he doesn’t want to learn.

So no, not afraid. Ashamed, though…. Yeah, he’s more than ashamed.

That’s his little brother down there. These are their humans.

Together, they’re his flock, and he let his fear cloud his judgement big time.

“I fucked up,” he says.

Sam nods, and Gabriel glares at how readily he agrees, but it’s not like the moose is wrong.

“But you can fix it.”

Gabriel nods. Yeah. Might not be easy, but he’s going to.

++

He finds Dean sitting outside the dungeon, back against the wall, telling Cas some nonsense story about one time that Sam, right before Stanford, nearly got busted for streaking half naked through a row of back yards because some lady’s German Shepard ripped the ass out of his pants, and nearly got _his_ ass as well.

Cas isn’t saying much back, and Gabriel knows what that means. There’s no silence from the younger angel more telling that when he’s hurt or just pushed under.

Dean looks up at him, gaze sad and yet accusing, and pushes himself to his feet. 

“You believe me now? That I know I fucked up?”

Gabriel isn’t going to start their fight all over again. That isn’t why he’s down here. “I believed you before. But you just didn’t get why it isn’t okay to put yourself at risk.”

“I get it,” Dean says, quietly. “But I can’t let anything happen to my family if I can stop it, dude. You know that.”

Yeah, yeah he does. He and Dean…. Much as in a different situation he’d be fake gagging at the merest hint of any similarity between him and Dean, the human’s not that unlike him...

Maybe he just needs to accept that each of them will always try to put the others first.

Cas just proved it, today, so maybe Gabriel needs to adjust how he looks after them. 

Especially when they won’t look after themselves.

He deactivates the sigil on the door, more for Dean’s benefit than Cas’s since he knows his little brother would have stayed put even if the door was open, but the magic was enough to stop Dean picking the lock, and goes inside.

Cas is standing, awardkly, leaning side on against the wall.

He looks tired, worn, and in pain, but surprised to see his brother.

“I thought,” he says, but then Dean’s almost barging past him and pulling Cas into a hug.

Gabriel notices the pain filled tension running through his little brother and tries to reconcile the side of him that would hurt Cas to teach Dean a lesson, with the side of him that just wants to keep them all safe.

He reaches out, and touches Cas’s cheek, and pushes healing Grace through him.

Then he nudges the two idiots towards the door. 

“Go take care of him,” he says, and figures they’ll know he’s talking to each one of them.

He’ll let them take the nest tonight.

There’s room in his bed for him and Sam, to maybe do some caretaking of their own.


End file.
